PM Conte: Italy to start easing its lockdown from May 4

Italy will announce before the end of this week its plans for a gradual reopening following a lockdown imposed to fight the coronavirus outbreak from May 4, according to Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.

“I wish I could say: let’s reopen everything. Immediately. We start tomorrow morning,” Conte wrote in a Facebook post on Tuesday. “But such a decision would be irresponsible. It would make the contagion curve go up in an uncontrolled way and would nullify all the efforts we have made so far.”

The lockdown, closing most Italian businesses and preventing people from leaving their homes for all but essential needs, has been in place since March 9. The measure has put a major strain on the eurozone’s third-largest economy.

The country must act on the basis of a national reopening plan, which takes into account territorial peculiarities, Conte said. The number of new coronavirus cases dropped to 2,256 on Monday, the lowest level in well over a month, the Civil Protection Agency said. The total death toll stood at 24,114, the second highest in the world after that of the US, Reuters said.